“Sleep, sweetheart.”
Beast
I wake up soaked and immediately sit up to see Esmerelda’s abdomen continually contracting then expanding. “Esme? I think your water broke,” I say, lightly shaking her shoulder.
“Hmm? Oh, how mortifying,” she replies before flicking her fingers to clean everything up. “Let’s go have our baby, sugar bear.”
How can she be so damn calm? I feel like I’ve run a marathon while fighting off an unknown enemy. Instead of asking, I get up then pull her into my arms to cradle her against my heart. “Where’s your bag?”
“In the truck already, Beast. We’ll call Charisma on the way since she’s my other birthing coach.”
“You know good and well she’ll scare the hell out of the nurses,” I murmur, chuckling.
“No, they’re all shifters, remember? So unless they have something against vampires, we should be okay.”
Once I have her secured in the truck, I start driving toward the clinic she’s been using. “Do we need to call the doctor?”
“That would probably be a good thing.” She makes the call to both Charisma as well as the clinic so by the time we arrive, a nurse is waiting at the door with a wheelchair. After I’m assured that Charisma won’t leave her side while I park, I go to handle that chore then hurry inside.
“She’s beautiful, Esme,” I state, looking down at the not-so-little pink bundle in my arms. “She’s got your nose, your eyes, your hair color.” I’m feeling a bit left out wondering if there’s anything of me in her.
“She’s got your height,” she teases.
“Should we let the masses in?” Charisma asks.
“Yeah,” Esme replies. I lean in and kiss her.
“You did so good, Esme,” I whisper. I’m amazed after watching her labor that she maintained her calm. I think Charisma and I were more stressed than my mate.
“You were there too, sugar bear,” she says. The door to her birthing suite opens and I watch as Maverick, Connelly, Paxton, Landry, Rowina and Kash all pile in. When I see Baldwin try to walk inside, Charisma shuts the door in his face. What the fuck? I glance down at Esmerelda only to see her with the same confused expression that I know I’m wearing. She leans up and says, “There’s a story there. I’ll see what I can do to figure out what’s going on.” I nod then watch as my brother waltzes inside, giving Charisma a wide berth.
“Congrats, brother,” he says, pounding me on the back. Looking down at Clementine, he states, “It’s a good thing she took after her mother in the looks department.”
“Shut it, fucker. You look the same as me.” I speak the truth since we could be twins despite our ten-year age difference.
“Nope. I’m the handsome one,” he replies, preening.
“Then that person was blind,” Charisma calls out.
“It’s my turn to get up with her, sleep, Esme,” I say as she tries to get up to get our wailing daughter.
“Gotta feed her, Beast,” she mumbles.
“Let me get her changed then I’ll bring her in so you can feed her, okay?”
“Okay.” She flops back, exhaustion trying to pull her under. Seems our girl doesn’t want to be on any set schedule so sometimes, she’s down for four hours, sometimes for two. After I have her changed, I carry her back into our room then hand her over to Esme. Watching her take care of our daughter in this way fills me with awe. “You’re staring, sugar bear,” she chides, switching Clementine to the other side.
“Hard not to when our girl has unfettered access to one of my favorite places,” I tease. Deciding to change the subject since we have a few more weeks to wait, I ask, “Were you able to get Charisma to talk?”
She practically growls while shaking her head. “That insufferable vamp refuses to tell me anything. And I can’t compel her because she’s immune! But I think that she and your brother are mates. Did you notice how they kept watching one another that day in the hospital? Not only that but every time one of them is here and the other shows up, one of them makes an excuse and leaves.”
“You may be right,” I muse. “Wouldn’t that be interesting?”
Her giggles soon have me laughing as we picture our eclectic family. “Never expected this, us, you know?” she asks, waving her hand between us. “Always thought I would only ever be a caretaker like Granny said I would be according to the cards.”
“You are a caretaker. Of our home, our daughter, my heart,” I assert. “Plus, this community that we’re a part of; you’re an integral part of making sure everything runs like clockwork which is a good thing since Mav will never really be a people person.”
“Then I have the best job in the world, sugar bear.”
“Love you, my sassy sorceress,” I tell her, kissing her bare shoulder.
“I love you more, my sugar bear.”
The End…
If you want to see what’ll be coming in 2022 in the next Rogue Enforcers round, flip the page to read a snippet from “Charisma” which will be written by myself and Liberty Parker! Please note that this is unedited and definitely subject to change!
Thank you to Grace Brennan for opening up her world to a bunch of crazy authors, including myself! Writing paranormal stories is so much fun, doing it in a world with so many of my author friends? Even more so. Here’s to many more “rounds” of the Rogue Enforcers and their shenanigans.
And as always, to my two PAs who do their best to ensure I stay the course and keep on keeping on when deadlines loom.
Dedication
For my grandkids. None of y’all are old enough to read anything I write, but my prayer and sincerest hope is that you’ll grow to love the written word as much as your great-grandfather, who passed that love on to me, did.
Stay tuned for
